1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to animal cages, particularly those adapted for containing small animals. More specifically the invention relates to sanitary systems for use in such animal cages.
2. State of the Art
For many people, the keeping of small animals as pets offers significant enjoyment and benefits. The maintenance of such pets oftentimes requires the provision of a cage or similar structure for purposes of housing the animal. Such cages must be adapted to provide a containment function as well as a sanitary environment.
Maintenance of a sanitary environment is often difficult in such cages. It has been recognized that unsanitary conditions in such cages contributes to the likelihood that the animal may become infected with disease. Recognizing that animals will oftentimes relieve themselves in such cage structures, it becomes of paramount concern that such cages be adapted for ease in cleaning and maintenance to restrict the development or harboring of disease causing genes or viruses.
Throughout history, cage structures have adopted a very typical construction. Such structures have in past included a floor surmounted by a plurality of upstanding walls mounted to that floor. The walls are generally joined to one another along their vertically oriented edges to define an enclosure having an interior area for receiving the animal. Such structures have many times included walls fabricated of a wire or other mesh-like material which permits the animal to see outwardly from within the interior of the structure. Oftentimes a drain or other structure is defined in the cage whereby waste materials may be removed from the cage interior subsequently disposed of.
The issue of maintaining sanitary conditions in animal housing units is particularly acute in kennels. In kennel facilitates which are adapted for maintaining a relatively large population of animals, it is oftentimes the practice that a multiplicity of individualized animal cages are arranged in rows or other configurations to facilitate the individualized housing of an animal population. It is a commonly known fact that in such kennels there exists a significant likelihood that disease may be spread from one diseased animal to another. It has further been found that oftentimes a principal means of transmission of disease in such kennels is the contact of one animal with the excrement of another animal which may be housed within a fairly short spacial distance of the first animal. It follows that in kennel construction it becomes of considerable concern that the waste materials of individual animals be efficiently removed from the individual cages of the kennel while at the same time minimizing, if not eliminating, the possibility of the animals in adjacent cages coming into contact with said waste materials.
Although past efforts in the animal cage construction industry have yielded a number of alternative animal cage constructions. There continues to exist a need for an animal cage structure, which at once provides an easy and efficient means of maintaining sanitary conditions in an individualized cage structure while at the same time facilitating a kennel arrangement wherein sanitary conditions may also be equally maintained.